Asleep at the Wheel 40 Miles Left to Go
I think identifying Canada as my favorite weapon was my undoing.
quick note: just in case you were wondering what the Christine reference is, there was a bumper sticker with the “I am pure evil…” tag in it to promote the Stephen King movie.
(from that moggy chick)
welcome back to ottawa in the spring. we couldn’t get any snow in January, and now we can’t seem to get rid of it. it’s not too cold (-2ish right now), but it is pretty gross out. snow, sleet, freezing rain, and all that fun. I think staying inside today is a good plan, and if we’re lucky we’ll get some sun on… thursday… *sigh*
this is shaver’s fault.
(that’s not a bad thing)
so. the leafs won last night, but it wasn’t enough to sneak into the playoffs after the Islanders beat the Devils in a shootout to take the last spot in the east. with the leafs eliminating montreal last night and the oilers self-destructing half a season ago, we’re left with three canadian teams in the hunt. I wanted the leafs to be in it for at least a series, but I’m one of the very few outside of toronto. oh well.
on paper the sens look good, but they’ve looked good on paper for years now, and have yet to live up to the potential they show during the regular season. I’ll cheer for them, but if past performance is any indicator I won’t be cheering long. once the sens exit, it’ll be a loooooooong wait ’til the 9th of september.
go sens, go… man, that just doesn’t sound as good.
I use flickr to host pretty much all of my recent photos*. It’s decently priced, feature-rich, and has a great community, with people from all over the place interacting, encouraging, and helping each other out. Ottawa’s got a smallish but active core of users, and we’re having our first meet-up at the end of this month. I’m a big fan of everything about it.
That said, it took me a looooooong time to figure out how a number of features worked (my favorite poorly-known feature is the guest pass, which allows you to share protected pictures with friends and family without needing a uname/password). There’s a lot you can do, and it’s not always intuitive. Thankfully, there’s a good read that’ll help you get started.
Someone took the time to write a Newbie’s Guide to flickr, and it is highly recommended for people getting started out with the service. The only thing the article doesn’t mention (and probably should) is that the FAQ is a great source of information (this means “read it”), and that with a little search-fu the forums and the people posting in them are crazy-helpful. It’s a great place to start before you even upload a pic. Check it out.
* – I still have a tonne over on gallery, but the lack of effective spam controls, huge influx of comment spam lately, and impending server upgrade means it’s not long for this world.
on saturday I stopped by hogs back falls to see how the high water was treating them. they look just a little different from when the falls are at low water.
it was about 10 degrees and sunny with very few clouds and a gorgeous blue sky. with the arrival of spring, there were a bunch of people out for a stroll and some taking of pictures. I took a few pics as well, and this one was my fave. there’s just a bit of snow holding on, and the spray from the water cascading over the rocks has frozen and clung to the trees/scrub in a few places. this is pretty much the last bit of evidence of winter I saw this weekend, all the piles of snow around the neighbourhood are gone.
the power behind all that water is mesmerizing, and it was nice to just zone out for a while and watch it flow by. if you’re in ottawa and have a chance, stop by for a look-see, it’s really an amazing bit of beauty in the middle of the city. it’s nice in the summer, but it’s best now (in my opinion). just remember to pick up after yourself… please.
so. my poor little ipod has been sitting in my desk drawer for a year and a half because I thought it was borken. what with all the clicking-hard-drive sounds it made when you tried to turn it on, this was understandable. this weekend I went through my office on a purge mission, and said ipod’s fate was put on the table.
when it worked, I lurved it. it had 40 gigs of space to throw all kinds of crap I’d never listen to on it, and some crap that I would. this craptacular bliss lasted about a year and a half, at which point the relationship ended abruptly. it has been replaced by two nanos since (the first one I can only assume is still in use) which are better than I could have thought possible.
I was going to chuck the 4g, but figured I’d look at repair prices becaue, really, who wants to throw away $400 after 18 months of use? I could buy a new drive for $150, and the next question was whether I’d fix it myself (preferred, ’cause I’m geeky) or send it in for the repair (“included in the price of the drive” say the ads – remember this part). so… could I repair the damn thing? heck, could I open the damn thing?
using the handy post over at ipod lounge, I realised I had a guitar pick, and could probably use it in the manner described. I found said pick and, sure enough, opened my 4g without scratching or breaking a thing. when I picked the shell apart, I was surprised to discover that the connector was actually loose. I re-seated it, and figured “what the hell, let’s give it a go”. I put it back together, and plugged it into a USB port (the battery was long dead).
the apple appeared, and then… so did the music. it works flawlessly, and I deleted everything on it and re-transferred 25 gigs of music to make sure the drive wasn’t teasing me. still working flawlessly.
so I’m wondering, how many repairs where people send their ipods in are simply a cable re-seat, or yield the repair shop a perfectly good drive… it’s probably not a huge issue, but I can’t help but wonder if the business card trick is really necessary, and if it’s just disconnecting and re-seating the connector that makes things happy.
I’ll use the 4g as the car player for the next month, and let you know how/if it continues to work. regardless, colour me “pleasantly surprised”.
this week has brought just a few changes with it into my life. they’re all good changes, and I am still waiting for them to all sink in.
first off, it’s officially spring. the snow is almost completely gone, and we’ve had cloudless skies and sun for most of this week. because it’s friday, it’ll undoubtedly change and piss rain for the next two days. yes, I’m an optimist.
I’ve also replaced my car. my friend j asked me five years ago why it was that I always bought fugly american cars. in a nutshell, the extended family had a number of links to the big three. unfortunately, the big three no longer offer anything I want, so I went with a mazda3 sport. “zoom zoom” indeed.
my po’ little ti has also been replaced by a snazzier, speedier model. sadly, it is NOT smaller. one of my only gripes with the mpb is that it is HUGE. it weighs a tonne, and despite being reasonably thin has more girth than it really should. that said, it is lightning fast and is a sweet piece of gear. I’m hoping all the manufacturing kinks have been worked out by now, and I won’t suffer the same pain as a number of my friends with theirs.
finally, and most importantly, if you have a look at the screens of the laptops, you’ll see they’re a little different. the really significant change is reflected there.
I’ve worked for the past couple of years at Critical Path, and today is my last day. I’ve enjoyed my customers and the people I’ve had the opportunity to work directly with. that said, it was time for a change, and man-oh-man, what an exciting change it is (for me, anyways).
the folks at Mozilla have given me an opportunity to help get more and more people using Firefox, the best browser on the planet. I’ll be starting on Monday, and I am incredibly stoked. more will follow as I get a little more acclimated, and I’m looking forward to being able to write a lot more about what exactly it is I do.
speaking of, when asked in the past about what it is that I do, I’ve always responded “I play with computers”. this is the first time in a very long time where I think that playing will allow me to do something meaningful. I’m looking forward to the challenge, and believe this week is the start of something special.
anyone wanna go celebrate? 😉
Amalah had an interesting trip to New York on the train. I did the exact same thing the first time I took a train into NYC through Newark. Two Penn Stations close to each other. Who thought that was a good idea, anyways?
There are plenty of dating sites out there, and it’s kind of entertaining to see how it’s the same people over and over at all of them… not that I’d know, or anything. It’s not a very innovative market, and the “innovations” are more to protect revenue streams at the pay-for-a-glimmer-of-hope sites than they are to help you meet your match for something less than five bucks (see? five bucks can buy happiness!).
The clever folks in New Zealand have come up with a new dating service that targets their locals needs. It’s entertaining, and it’s certainly not something you’d see in the North American market.
